Rasputin and the Empress

It's a treat to see the three Barrymore siblings together, a joy to see Lionel ham it up big time as the mad monk, and Rasputin's murder--goodness, but that old charlatan was hard to kill!--is worth a look. But Boleslavsky's direction is always slow and often lame, and keeps this film from being the great camp classic it might have been. Oh, that Von Sternberg would have been hired to direct! (But I doubt the Barrymores would ever have tolerated Joe's autocratic manner).

THE THREE BARRYMORE'S! John, Lionel and Ethel. The siblings only film together. And they pick a interesting story to tell. The one about the mad Rasputin and the fall of the Romanov dynasty! MGM really tried to make a grand epic out of that novelty, but it falls a little flat for my taste. The modified story struggles to reach the intensity of the period and what these people were involved in. That doesn't take away the marvelous performances of the Barrymore's, especially Lionel and Ethel.